Saturday, October 29, 2016

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Something Clicked This Way Comes

Just a few quick thoughts andspeculations on the latest thrilling episode of Hillary's Life of Scandal.--While a hypothetical President-elect Clinton would not have the immediate power to fire FBI Director James Comey for trying to spoil her coronation, she theoretically couldgrant herself the additional power to abolish the entire agency once she took office. Since dissension within the ranks of the Bureau was reportedly the impetus for Comey's letter to Congress about some newly-discovered emails, Hillary would remain highly vulnerable, with or without the current director's resignation.

-- Look at the whole murky history of the FBI. Teddy Roosevelt did a sneaky summer end-run around an adjourned Congress in 1908 by unilaterally creating his own executive police force. Congress had refused to go along with the formal creation of such a federal agency, rightly fearing that it would operate in too much secrecy. Ominously, the plutocratic Attorney General directly tasked by Teddy with manning the Bureau just happened to be the grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. What one aristocraticTrust-buster and an Emperor's spawn giveth, a once and future mistrusted Empress can (hypothetically of course) easily taketh away.

--When Congress refused to give AG Charles Bonaparte any money for his spy agency, he ignored them, and simply appropriated personnel from the Secret Service. The FBI has been an illegal agency from the outset. But as has been its wont, Congress is loath to overturn an executive order or a secret legal opinion or stealthbombings and invasions once they are "done deals."--Since the firstofficial task of Roosevelt's quasi-publiccop shop was to enforce the Mann Act, and crack down on female sex workers by infiltrating houses of prostitution,wouldn't it be a hoot if one of its very last recorded acts was the attempted destruction of a political campaign by way of cracking down on a male sex addict?--Of course, the main impetus for the creation of the FBI was the growing popularity of socialism, which spawned widespread paranoia within the ruling class. Roosevelt, remember, only became president when his predecessor was assassinated by an "anarchist." The scary Other back then were not Muslims and Mexicans, but Germans and Italians and other European immigrants. Domestic espionage upon all manner of civil and labor rights activists and pacifists and other critics of the military-industrial complex has long been at the core of the agency's mission. See, for example, COINTELPRO and most recently, the outrageous FBI scanning of Yahoo emailunder the direction of the talented Mr. Comey.

In sum, Hillary, intelligence aficianado that she is,could and likely would simply replace the current FBI with a carefully purged new agency all her own, called the New Improved FBI.-- According to its own auto-hagiography, the current Bureau has prided itself from its very inception for selectively rooting out political corruption. In the First Gilded Age, as in our ongoing Second era of inequality, "corruption was rampant nationwide... with crooked political machines like Tammany Hall in full power." So, who knows, Comey might actually think he's a rare and bold adherentof the noble historic spirit of his spy agency.-- For those willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, James Comey is simply doing his unpleasant job, creating an unavoidable smallish mess out of the pre-existing humongous mess created by Clinton herself. As noted above, he is probably bowing to pressure from the rank and file, said to be disgruntled by the government's prior kid-glove treatment of Hillary. As a group, law enforcement unionsare almost uniformly supporting Law and Order candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. This doesn't make a lot of sense, given Hillary's own established hawkishness and pro-police history. Then again, Hell tends to be murky. -- Democrats who are strutting and fretting at Comey (see, for example, Paul Krugman's Twitter meltdown) for politicizing Clinton's mess should direct some of their wrath at President Obama, who in a fit of pathological bipartisanship nominated the shadow banking/surveillance-friendly Republican FBI Director in the first place. Comey's reputation for honesty was a huge selling point at the time. Fair is foul and foul is fair. --Just when we thought the duopoly, rampant as it has been with promises of war, and threats and actual outbreaks of violence, and revelations of sexism and fraud in the highest echelons, couldn't go any lower, it just got lower. The direct intervention of an unconstitutional police state into the electoral process is something out of a Banana Republic. The attempted hijacking of the "Neoliberal Death Match" between a publicly loathed multimillionaire and a publicly loathed billionaire is just one end-product of the deeply ingrained corruption which has been integral to the American ruling establishment for a very long time. --But the extinction of American representative democracy is nothing compared to the ongoing extinction of two-thirds of the earth's animal species. Since that scenario of dusty death is too frightening to contemplate, you are all hereby urged to turn on CNN in order to get fully briefed on DikiLeaks, as well as to get fully hoodwinked by those insipidly incessant and multicultural "I'm An Energy Voter!" commercials sponsored by the planet-destroying petroleum industry.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

***Nought's had, all's spent/ Where our desire is got without content;/ 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy/ Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. -- Lady Macbeth.

10 comments:

annenigma
said...

Hillary, who selectively turned over to the FBI only what she wanted them to have by deleting/bleaching away 33,000 'personal' emails in violation of a subpoena, now demands that that THEY show HER everything THEY have. Maybe if she didn't delete all those personal messages, she could review them right now for the proper spin.

In regard to those 33,000 'personal' emails, would she really delete them all forever when they could help jog her memory for writing lucrative memoir$? Is it possible that she copied them over to Huma for safe keeping, using Huma as her personal repository - the Library of Clinton. If Huma, good and faithful servant that she's been for so long, helped Hillary hide those emails from the FBI and if even one is classified, they'd both better start working on a plea deal.

Hillary should have been far more gracious when Comey let her off the hook the first time instead of insisting that he actually exonerated her completely despite what he clearly said. That's Hillary though. She lives in an alternative reality. She's imperious and invincible, Queen Hillary.

Adding to all this is Wikileak's exposure of how the Clinton Family Foundation functions with many 'important' people directing traffic in and out of that enterprise which beats some of Trump's accomplishments and even upset Chelsea I would like the FBI director to suggest investigating that kettle of smelly fish along with involving Huma Abedin possibly using Hillary's private email service to communicate with her infamous ex husband. We need some entertainment while we await the dismal end of the election.

However Hillary may not have time to govern the nation if these investigations continue, which may be a plus.

Its too bad Hillary's run is imploding days before the election. The Clintons are crooks. I also think Andrew Weiner and Bill Clinton are kindred spirits - middle aged married men chasing teenage girls.

Can you even imagine the reaction from all Hillary's owners if she loses? Think of the billions they've invested to consolidate power through their contributions over the years to the Clinton crime family's campaign and Foundation slush funds. It could all go to waste if she loses and all that power could slip out of their money-grubbing, bloody hands. So tragic - if she wins.

Nearly the entire Republican establishment, Wall Street banksters, neo-con war criminals, neolib globalist warmongers, Hollywood celebrities, New York Times columnists, Democratic establishment, et. al. are going to have the biggest collective nervous breakdown if she loses. Good thing they all have gold plated health insurance.

Too bad Hillary never quits. If she did (like NOW), and the DNC put Bernie in, he'd handily beat Trump even with just days to go before the election. He consistently polled much stronger against Trump than Hillary ever did.

If she loved her country more than money and power, that's exactly what she'd do, but she has big donors to answer to so she can't and won't.

Karmic justice would be for the Democrats to put the candidate in that we wanted, not the one they rigged to win. They need a painful lesson for their subversion of the electoral process and our democracy, such as it is.

Bernie could throw Donald Trump a wicked fast curve ball and strike him out. What a game changer that would be.

Annenigma: Did I read that you felt Bernie might do some good if he could run? And not only to beat Trump but could help put a few deep dents in the establishment in addition. Just as Hillary looks better next to Trump, I daresay Bernie looks much better next to Hillary. But he is pledged to improve the scenery in Congress by getting the vote out in that area. But then again since it is a challenging election thanks to sitting on their hind legs liberal neutered cats, it might be a real challenge.

I supported Bernie until the bitter end, although I suspected Kibuki theater from the start. I ended up voting for Jill Stein. Most of my friends and relatives express the opinion that I wasted my vote. Given what's going on in this country I believe that everyone is wasting their votes. The corporate aristocracy is firmly in charge.

I wasn't paying attention when Comey was appointed. But what was President Obama thinking when he appointed a Republican to a 10-year term?? Hadn't he learned anything by trying to be nice to Congress and have them give him wedgies and steal his lunch money?

Hasn't the bad-GOP-obstructionists-to-good-Obama thing been thoroughly de-bunked? Doesn't the willingness to appointment people like Comey exactly debunk it? They're all in the same Party, and notgoverning (at the expense of the people) is what they do, the system is streamlined and working marvelously (for the Great Owners).